North Valley Pike Plan

After reading the plan for the North Valley Pike, here are my comments:

Love the idea of a bike path or greenway along the stream as shown in the map on page 18 as it would encourage outside exercise. 

How will you make sure that motorists just passing through are diverted to the new North South Connection rather than continuing up 11N through the commercial section, will it be just signs saying detour?  Will the commercial section be more local businesses or large scale businesses and franchises? 

Love the idea of having enough sidewalk space for outdoor cafes and seating, as well as increasing walkability.  There needs to be enough close parking (side street lots?) for people to come up from Harrisonburg to shop/hang out.  There should also be enough trees and green around the sidewalks to make it feel like a small town street rather than a big city feel (all concrete), see pictures on page 27 of the plan.  I fully support adding sidewalks to every road possible, especially the side roads to increase walking to the main street.  Not only would it help businesses, it would help form a community feeling and create healthier people.

It’s really hard to see how the context area map and the Illustrative Vision map connect to each other when they are shown at different angles, either redrawing the maps to have north in the same direction or placing a compass rose in the map would help readers understand what they are looking at.  Example of this on page 26.

For the employment area with the new connector road, it would make more sense to have Alternate 2 (page 31) where you have 2 lanes per direction if you are using that road to divert traffic from Route 11.  Having only one lane may cause problems with the extra traffic that is diverted and the traffic that needs to go to a place in the area.  It would be fabulous if there could be a rail link here that would supply D.C. so people who live in the area could take the train to D.C. (wishful thinking?)

Harrisonburg could take some hints from the Well Networked Uses/Streets guide on page 33.  It would make for a more resident friendly area.  Thank you for planning this area before development occurs, unlike the area surrounding Reservoir Street to Neff Avenue.  If this area develops like your plan lays out, I would live there over many areas in Harrisonburg, even though I would probably have to drive to attend JMU.